Braun: Rutgers-Camden medical school situation is personal, as well as political

Noah K. Murray/The Star-LedgerSen. Donald Norcross, right, speak during hearing before The Senate Higher Education Committee. "Rutgers could have had the medical school some years ago," said State Sen. Donald Norcross (D-Camden), the prime sponsor of the bill that aims to "reorganize" higher education in the state.

Add yet another factor to the emotional politics behind the drive to strip Rutgers University of control over its Camden campus, politics described by one state senator as "the beginning of a new civil war": The personal. The rejection that the powerful Norcross family of South Jersey felt at the refusal of the university’s president to take over the new Cooper Medical School in Camden.

"Rutgers could have had the medical school some years ago," said State Sen. Donald Norcross (D-Camden), the prime sponsor of the bill that aims to "reorganize" higher education in the state but also results in the first real threat to the autonomy and structural integrity of Rutgers University in its 56-year history as it is called under the law, "The State University of New Jersey."

"For whatever reason, they decided not to," said Norcross, whose brother George is political boss of South Jersey.

Through the efforts of Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-Gloucester) and the demands of Gov. Chris Christie, the bill is racing through the Legislature without so much as a pause to think of its price tag. The other day, the five senators on the Senate Higher Education committee voted for the bill, although the three Democrats and two Republicans admitted — like Donald Norcross did — they had no clue how much money it would cost. Critics have put the price at a quarter-billion dollars, maybe more.

Donald Norcross blamed the Rutgers "bureaucracy" for rejecting Cooper Medical School, but that bureaucracy is headed — at least until the end of the month — by outgoing president Richard McCormick.

McCormick, despite the reluctance of his governing boards and the opposition of faculty and many students, has pushed hard for the part of the bill that permits the university’s takeover of the Central Jersey operations of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) — even at the price of losing the Camden campus. Rutgers briefly had a medical school until 1971 when the state took it over as part of UMDNJ; regaining it would be McCormick’s legacy.

The bill, as written by Sweeney, adds another sweetener — the Rutgers takeover of UMDNJ’s Newark assets, giving Rutgers two medical school campuses. That part of the bill led to the comment about "civil war" when state Sen. Ronald Rice (D-Essex) implored the committee to hold the bill.

But the unanswered question hanging over the legislative hearings — and the entire proposal — is this: If it is good state policy for New Jersey’s state university to take over medical education in Newark and Piscataway, why not in Camden?

Donald Norcross, in an interview after he testified before the Senate Higher Education Committee, answered: "Why would we want to empower Rutgers to take over an asset of Rowan University?"

Rowan University, a former state teachers college whose biggest major is still teacher education, had agreed to take in the medical school after McCormick declined. "Rowan has done a good job," Norcross said.

But Rowan has nowhere near the assets, bonding capacity, reputation or research experience of Rutgers and the point of the merger with UMDNJ in Newark and Piscataway — repeated by the legislator Norcross over and over again — is the "synergy" of combining medical education with research.

The other prime sponsor of the bill is State Sen. Joseph Vitale (D-Middlesex), usually not considered part of the South Jersey legislative delegation controlled by George Norcross. He sat next to Donald the other day and repeated the usual claims about synergy and, like the Camden senator, couldn’t say how much it would cost. So, he was asked, if Rutgers is good enough to take over UMDNJ in Newark and Piscataway, why not the medical school assets in Camden?

"Do I think Rutgers could handle it? Sure," he said after his testimony. "Would it be consistent to do it that way? Yes. If I had my druthers, if Rutgers could affiliate with New Brunswick" — the UMDNJ facilities in nearby Piscataway — "they could affiliate with Cooper."

But, he added, that’s not the way "they" want the bill written. The "they"? The Norcross brothers and Sweeney.

"It was offered," he said, "and they turned it down. And now it’s kind of too late. The horses already are out of the barn, the birds have flown."

McCormick declined a request for an interview. Instead, he issued this statement:

"The folks from Cooper brought a proposal to us for Rutgers to start a new four-year medical school in Camden. Our initial review of the proposal was not favorable and our conversations never really progressed."